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by synchronik



Series: Not The Prettiest Game [6]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:42:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synchronik/pseuds/synchronik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems slightly ridiculous to have a hotel room in a city where he owns a condo, but Ryan's never stayed with Chris when they were on opposing teams, and he doesn't know what it will be like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> The game is real. The rest? Not so much.

Ryan gets a hotel room in Pittsburgh. It seems slightly ridiculous to have a hotel room in a city where he owns a condo, but he's never stayed with Chris when they were on opposing teams, and he doesn't know what it will be like. Better to have a hotel room than spend the trip fighting.

He's on the team bus from the airport when his phone buzzes. 

>>eta? 

Ryan turns to the window, watching the hills roll by, the splash of evening light reflecting off the buildings of downtown edging closer, and bites his cheek to suppress the smile. 

>>half an hour, he writes. 

* * *

It's almost forty-five minutes, actually, when the cab pulls up in front of his building. He pays the guy, hoists his bag out of the trunk, and heads into the courtyard. His door is on the far side of the small space, on the other side of the fountain, and the key slots easily into the lock. 

"Chris?" Ryan sets his bag on the bench on the foyer, on top of Chris's own gear bag, STEWART 19 stitched on the side in yellow thread. He can hear the television. "You here?" 

And then he is there, in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, his feet bare. 

"Hey!" Ryan's smile is so wide it hurts. Chris says nothing, but takes three steps and is on him, arms around his neck, body pressed close. He's trembling faintly, like a nervous dog, which Ryan doesn't like; Chris isn't nervous, ever. "What's up?" Ryan asks, squeezing him. 

Chris sighs heavily, but doesn't let go. "I missed you," he says. 

* * *

The problem is both simple and complicated: they don't get Chris. The managers do, obviously, or else they wouldn't have brought him on, but the writers and the fans, they don't understand why Chris is playing every fourth or fifth day and not Tony Sanchez. 

"I'm the _back up_ ," Chris says, leaning forward over the remains of the pizza. "I'm not in his way!" 

"Who cares what they say?" Ryan wipes his mouth with a napkin and tosses it into the box. Chris doesn't eat pizza crusts unless they're stuffed with cheese, a predilection that Ryan finds adorable for some reason, even though it annoyed him when he saw kids do it, even his own. 

"Really?" Chris narrows his eyes. "Advice from Mr. Chip-on-his-Shoulder?" 

Chris has a point. Ryan's not exactly known for his indifference to his own press coverage. "But what's his name, Hurdle, he likes you." 

Chris shrugs, pushing a crust around the box with the tip of his finger. 

"And what about the rotation?" 

Another shrug, his shoulders hunched. The way he's sitting, Ryan can see the tan line on his neck, the ring of lighter skin that indicates that Chris recently got a haircut, and Ryan is overcome with homesickness, so intense it's like a punch to the gut. How many haircuts had he missed? Five? Six? A _dozen_ already? 

He stands up, an attempt to ward off his feelings, and carries the pizza box into the kitchen. When he comes back, he stops behind Chris's stool and wraps his arms around him, pressing his nose against the pale skin behind his ear. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what he can say, because there is no way that anything he says can fix the problem Chris is having. The public thinks what they think, the writers write what they write, and the only thing Chris can do is keep showing up and playing his own game. And Chris already knows all this, because Chris was the one that told all this to him, over and over again, after he broke his hand and before he knew he would be back. 

So he says nothing. But he doesn't loosen his grip until Chris sighs and shifts in his chair. "I'm so glad you're here," Chris says, his hand folding over Ryan's forearm. Ryan re-tightens his grip. 

* * *

Chris kisses him after dinner, bumping up against him like an affection-starved cat, eyes down. Ryan kisses back, hands on Chris's hips, sliding up his back, but Chris's heart isn't in it, he knows that before they even start. When Chris moves to pull his shirt over his head, Ryan stops him. 

"Come on," he says, and heads down the hall to the bedroom. 

He hasn't slept in his own bed in five weeks, but the room is the same, the bed rumpled, Chris's clothes in a pile at the foot, no matter how many times Ryan points out the hamper. He lets go of Chris's hand and crawls onto the bed without even bothering to turn on the light. 

"You tired?" Chris asks. 

"C'mere," Ryan says, holding his arms open. 

Chris pulls off his shirt and lies down, curling up on his side, his cheek on Ryan's shoulder. Ryan squeezes him close, his free hand going up to Chris's throat, resting lightly there, feeling the beat of Chris's pulse under his fingertips. 

* * *

They go in together the next morning, because everyone knows that Chris is staying at Ryan's condo in Pittsburgh so there's no need to pretend. Ryan heads to his locker while Chris chats with some of the guys who remember him from the 2011 team. Chris is quiet in the clubhouse, friendly but distant, his nose in a book half of the time, but everyone likes him. They don't love him, the way that they love Mike Morse, for example, or Timmy, but they're...fond, Ryan thinks is the word. 

Speaking of Timmy, Lincecum has come around the corner in shorts, a towel around his neck. "Stew!" he shouts, when he realizes who the visitor is. "My man!" 

They slap hands and then hug, and Ryan is too far away to really hear what they say to each other, but it's pretty obvious that Chris is slagging on him for the mustache. Rightly so. That thing is an affront to all mustaches everywhere. 

Tim laughs, mouth wide open, leaning in to Chris. _It's not fair,_ Ryan thinks, _that he should be so ugly and so fucking adorable at the same time._

They talk for another minute or two, long enough for Ryan to clock the hand that Chris keeps casually on Lincecum's shoulder, the smooth muscles in Lincecum's pale bare arms, the way he ducks his head, smiling at his shower shoes while he listens to Chris speak. They had been a good battery, Lincecum and Stewart, something special in a season that was anything but. They had a connection. 

Have a connection. 

Ryan turns back to his locker. He doesn't know when Chris leaves. 

* * *

Ryan isn't scheduled to pitch on this trip, so he and Bumgarner aren't sent back to the hotel with the other starters to get some rest when the game goes to extras. He thinks about leaving anyways, starter's prerogative, but he knows he'd just end up watching the game on television, so why not stay here and see it up close. 

Chris comes in in the tenth inning. Ryan doesn't realize it at first--he's sitting along the fence with Maddy, chewing sunflower seeds and spitting the shells on the ground. Something catches his eye, a flash of white, a glimpse of movement, and he thinks just one word--"jesus"--before he realizes that the guy he's looking at is Chris, brought in as a defensive substitution. 

He's watched Chris play dozens of times. They share an MLBtv subscription, and he tries to see every game Chris is in, even if it's just on his phone, so he knows what Chris looks like in the squat, and how he holds his arms out wide like Jesus to get the outfielders' attention before giving the signs, and how the pads crawling halfway up his legs make him look taller. These are things Ryan didn't notice when he and Chris were on the same team, because he was too busy working, but he's gotten familiar with them since Chris was traded. 

But it's different in person. Better. 

In person, he can watch as Chris folds his body up behind home plate, live action origami, until he's below the umpire's line of sight. He notices the sharp line of Chris's jaw beneath the catcher's mask. He can see the flash of the orange stickers on Chris's long fingers as he throws the ball back out to the pitcher. Ryan's seen Chris naked, he's fucked him and been fucked by him, and watching him do his job is still so hot that Ryan has to put his feet up on the fence to hide the beginning of an erection. Chris doesn't look over at the visitor's dugout, and Ryan is glad he doesn't. 

"Right, Vogey?" Madison says, nudging him with one elbow. 

Ryan blinks. He's heard nothing of the conversation, but Maddy is looking at him expectantly. The other guy in the conversation is Ehire Adrianza, nice guy, utility infielder, which makes his answer easier. Pitchers before infielders. 

"Yep," he says. "Sure." 

"There you go," Maddy says to Adrianza. "Like I said." 

Adrianza protests a little, good naturedly, and Ryan turns his attention back to the game just in time to see Chris throw Crawford out at second. It's so hot that, for a second, Ryan almost forgets what team he's on and cheers. 

* * *

The Giants win in the thirteenth and the atmosphere in the clubhouse is a little like a playoff game, even though it's only May, but Ryan cuts out as early as he can--slightly after the guys with family in town, but before the party really starts. 

Chris isn't home when he gets there. He goes to the fridge and pulls out a beer, looking out the kitchen window at PNC Park, the lights down low. He imagines he can see the rest of the guys leaving, streaming out to the bars in Mexican War Streets, or boarding the bus to the hotel, or turning their cars toward home. The lights twinkle on the river. Ryan watches them in the dark. 

The door opens before he's finished his beer. 

"Hey," Chris says. 

Ryan sets his bottle on the counter and goes to Chris, sliding his hands over Chris's chest, pushing forward until their mouths meet. 

"Hey," Chris breathes. 

Ryan doesn't say anything. He kisses Chris instead, unbuttoning his shirt from the bottom up, tugging his t-shirt out of his pants, flipping the end of Chris's belt through the buckle. Once Chris's clothes are loosened, Ryan eases back and pulls his own shirt over his head. He undoes his pants and shoves them down, stepping out of them in one smooth motion, then drops to his knees. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of Chris's underwear and slides them down. 

"Ryan," Chris breathes. 

He's half-hard, and smells of locker room soap, and sways back and forth, his hand on Ryan's shoulder tightening as Ryan takes him into his mouth. Ryan strokes him with one hand, and holds him up with a palm on his leg. He can feel the tremors when they start in the big muscles of Chris's thigh. He stops. 

"C'mere," he says, hooking his hand over Chris's where it rests on his shoulder. Chris crouches, wincing, and then he's on the floor, his legs spreading under Ryan's hands, his back arching when Ryan licks his cock. He hooks Chris's knees over his shoulders, and leans forward, his hands sliding up to stroke Chris's ribs, his belly. 

It takes a while, the way it always did after a game when they were Giants together, like the body has to adjust from doing one thing to another, a re-routing of adrenaline and attention, but eventually he feels Chris's body relax and then tense under his hands. 

"Ry, Ryan, _Ryan_ ," Chris gasps, his hand fluttering against Ryan's shoulder. Ryan swallows, wiping his smile on Chris's leg. 

"Fuck," Chris sighs. His thigh is still trembling a little, aftershocks. "I should lose all the time." 

Ryan shoves himself up until he's over Chris, hands on either side of his arms. He leans down and licks Chris's sweaty neck. "That wasn't for losing, it was for the caught stealing." 

In the dim light filtering through the window, Chris's smile gleams. He reaches up, flattening his palm on Ryan's abdomen. "What do I get for losing?" 

* * *

Ryan forgets that they aren't leaving together. He remembers in the sixth inning of the rubber game, when Chris gets a hit. _I'm gonna--_ he thinks before he realizes that he's not going home after this game. He's getting on the bus, then flying to Los Angeles with the rest of the team, and Chris is staying here. He sits in the dugout for the rest of the game, but doesn't see it. The loss barely registers. He's too busy thinking about how to see Chris and when and for how long. His phone is blinking when he comes out of the shower. 

>>hallway, it says. 

Ryan dresses quickly and heads out into the hall. Chris is leaning up against the wall, still in his uniform and cleats, frowning at his phone. The black jersey really makes him look hard-jawed and dangerous. And hot. Ryan's fingers itch to touch him. 

And this is a public place. 

"When are you heading out?" Chris asks. 

"An hour or so." 

Chris nods. "This was fun." 

"Yeah." 

"Alright, man. Good to see you." He holds out his hand and they lean in for the one shoulder bro-hug. Ryan could live forever and never do another one of these annoying half hugs. But when he moves to step back, Chris pauses, his hand on Ryan's shoulder. "Someday," he whispers into Ryan's ear, "I'm going to fuck you with my gear on." 

Ryan smiles. "Someday, I'm gonna make you." 

They clap shoulders again, clap clap, and step apart. "See you," Chris says. 

"See you," Ryan agrees. Chris will call him tonight or he will call Chris. They'll see each other at the All-Star Break. And when October ends, they'll be together again. 

Ryan waits until the scrape of Chris's cleats on the cement fade into the background noise of the stadium, then he steps back into the clubhouse to get ready to leave. 


End file.
